By: Mikayla Hill
In “Is Empathy Overrated”, Paul bloom argues that empathy, a usual positive trait, can also have some negative morals to it. It can lead to irrational and immoral decisions. Bloom showed that empathy can be biased at times resulting in focusing on only some people and leaving out others and neglecting bigger issues. He also shows that empathy can be very easily manipulated. It can be harmful in professional settings, for example medicine and law. In these fields, detachment is sometimes necessary. Bloom suggests that compassion and moral reasoning are better guides for ethical behavior and decision making.
In the story, “Is Empathy Overrated” by Paul Bloom, he makes three arguments in the story. His first argument is “empathy distorts our moral judgments in pretty much the same way prejudice does” (Bloom 2). Thisargues that empathy, like prejudice, distorts our moral judgement by causing biased opinions and favoring people we empathize with over other individuals. The next argument he made was “Empathy is a spotlight with narrow focus: it shines brightly on those we love and gets dim for those who are different or strange” (Bloom 2). This statement argues that empathy can be very selective, shining brightly on loved ones but dimming for others. This can lead to biased moral judgements. This narrow foucs shifts our decisions, putting more “valued” people in our life above others, leaving questions on the morals of empathy. The last argument is, “what really matters for kindness is self-control, intelligence, and a more diffuse compassion” (Bloom 3). Bloom argues that effective kindness relies more on self-control, intelligence, and compassion rather than just empathy alone.This showed that these qualities are very important for genuine kindness. They provide an equal approach then the bias of empathy.
I agree do agree with bloom on these arguments because I do feel as if people in society are very biased when it comes down to empathy and who they are empathic towards. Also, as if people we see how to earn our empathy in a way for us to fully have empathy for someone.
He challenged my initial view of empathy when reading the first 2 sentences. When you read the first sentence, “does empathy make the world a better place?” of course your first thought is yes it does make the world a better place then you go to read the next sentence which says, “it certainly looks like it”. which makes you wonder what bloom is talking about. It is almost obvious that the world is a better place with empathy which makes you read more into it seeing the reasons why it could not be.
One claim that the author bloom made that evoked a strong response was “The real problem is that we don’t have enough empathy for other people” (Bloom3). I challenge this because empathy never guarantees better outcomes but can lead to decisions that are biased in favor of people, we connect with deeper leaving the less fortunate people hurt. Instead, focusing on fairness might turn out to be more effective in fairness and wellbeing of individuals.
question for class- How might society function if decisions were based on compassion instead of empathy?
